Secure Pairing Architecture for Wireless Mobile Devices

Pairing of wireless mobile devices requires an initial secure channel. A common approach is to use human as the secure channel or use an alternative medium such as a USB cable. However, we would like to minimize the involvement of users in the process. We propose a secure channel mechanism based on restricting the physical layer coverage for the initialization phase. Our system allows secure pairing between heterogeneous devices. After the pairing, the devices can be used even in multihop networks and through multiple interfaces, if available. The approach is general and thus can be applied to varying key exchange protocols and physical layer technologies